Spiffy:

Iffy:

Will everyone spend too much time comparing it to its brilliant predecessor?

For a long time, whenever someone mentioned console shooters, GoldenEye for the Nintendo 64 was the first game that came to most gamers' minds. Not only did the game have a challenging, well-designed single player game, it also had the best one of the best console multiplayer modes seen to this day, a fact that wasn't lost on many FPS connoisseurs. In fact, the game is so popular that I actually know a few people who kept their N64s simply to keep playing it. Now, though, they might finally have a reason to move on to bigger and better things.

It's no surprise, then, that many fans of the original aren't sure what to think about the new game being developed by Electronic Arts. GoldenEye: Rogue Agent not being developed by the same people that made the original game, so there's a good chance that lightning won't strike twice. Perhaps craziest of all, however, was the decision to leave out the best part about most James Bond games: the debonair agent himself. Instead, you'll be filling the shoes of a supervillain, a man with a golden eye and an itchy trigger finger.

Last week, Chris Plummer, the senior producer of the new version of GoldenEye: Rogue Agent, was kind enough to swing by the office to give us a hands-on demo of the game. We've seen a little bit of the single player game in action, but this day was going to be all about the multiplayer action. He started off by telling us a little bit about what kind of variety we'll be seeing in the game. There will be a total of sixteen guns in the game, with fourteen falling in the single player side of the game, and fourteen on the multiplayer side. According to Chris, each mode will have two weapons that will only be available in that particular gametype.

One thing that will be available in both modes, however, is the game's eye powers, which allow you to gain the upper hand on your opponents in a variety of ways. However, unlike the single player game, which forces you to unlock the different eye powers as your progress, all of the powers will be available to players in multiplayer. That's not to say, though, that they will have the same effect from mode to mode. For instance, in the single player campaign, you can use your electromagnetic pulse (EMP) to throw opponents into walls or out of windows, which seemed a bit too powerful for the multiplayer game. Instead, utilizing your EMP will briefly stun your foes, allowing you to blast them with your firearms.